Field Reference Guide

One of the most important elements of the class development cycle is ensuring that your class design adheres to the standards used by other classes in the Pandora Engine. This document is provided to assist you in creating new class structures so that your naming standards match up with the rest of the system. The type and description details in the table serve as indications only, and may be altered to fit your requirements if you believe it to be appropriate for your class design. Please make sure that if you do stray from these standards, you will need to provide an explanation of this in your documentation so that developers are not confused when creating software that uses your class.

Any field names that are not listed in the table may use a type and purpose of your own design. If you have any additions for the field table, please send your requests to devsupport@rocklyte.com.


Category  Name  Type  Description 
Files Location STRING Refers to a file location, usually one that contains data that is relevant to the class type.
  Position LONG Must be supported in conjunction with the Seek action. The Position field reflects the current byte position for reading and writing to an object's data.
  Src STRING This field is sometimes supported in conjunction with the Location field, as a synonym. We recommend that you only use it in classes that are designed for use in DML.
       
General Flags LONG Optional flags are typically provided through the Flags field.
  Output OBJECT   Classes that are capable of printing text information should do so by supporting the Output field. This works similarly to stdout in POSIX, but you are required to send information to the Output object through the data channel mechanism.
  Size LONG Indicates the size of object data, in bytes.
  Static LONG This field applies to classes that support object scripting. When set to TRUE, an object should stay in memory when a ClosingTag action is received. If set to FALSE, then the object should self-destruct when the ClosingTag action is received.
  Usage STRING This read-only field is usually supported by command classes. When a program reads it, you should return a complete description of how the class should be used on the command line.
  Visible LONG When an object is visible to the user, this field should be set to TRUE. In all other cases it should be set to FALSE to indicate that an object is invisible or hidden.
       
Graphics AmtColours LONG Should reflect the total amount of colours represented in the graphical data of an object.
  Bitmap OBJECT Refers to a Bitmap object that contains graphical data.
  BitsPerPixel LONG The amount of bits per pixel used in constructing an object's graphical data.
  BytesPerPixel LONG The amount of bytes per pixel used in contructing an object's graphical data.
  Colour STRING A string based colour value. Should accept colour values in the form of "#RRGGBB" for hexadecimal and "Red,Green,Blue" for decimal.
  ColourRGB *RGB An RGB based colour value (struct RGB *).
  Mask STRING A string based colour value. Should accept colour values in the form of "#RRGGBB" for hexadecimal and "Red,Green,Blue" for decimal.
  MaskRGB *RGB An RGB based colour value (struct RGB *).
       
GUI BottomLimit FLOAT Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the bottom of its drawable container.
  BottomMargin   FLOAT The bottom margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the bottom edge of its graphical area.
Height FLOAT The height of an object.
  LeftLimit FLOAT Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the left edge of its drawable container.
  LeftMargin FLOAT The left margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the left edge of its graphical area.
  MaxHeight FLOAT Limits an object's maximum height. This field is especially useful for preventing excessive resizing.
  MaxWidth FLOAT Limits an object's maximum width. This field is especially useful for preventing excessive resizing.
  MinHeight FLOAT Reflects an object's minimum height. Used to prevent an object's graphical height from shrinking too much.
  MinWidth FLOAT Reflects an object's minimum width. Used to prevent an object's graphical width from shrinking too much.
  RightLimit FLOAT Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the right edge of its drawable container.
  RightMargin FLOAT The right margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the right edge of its graphical area.
  StickToBack LONG If set to TRUE, the object will stick to the back of its drawable container (behind all the other graphics).
  StickToFront LONG If set to TRUE, the object will stick to the front of its drawable container (in front of all the other graphics).
  Sticky LONG This field prevents an object from being moved with the Move action when it is set to TRUE. It is usually supported to prevent GUI objects from being moved by scroll bars.
  TopLimit FLOAT Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the top edge of its drawable container.
  TopMargin FLOAT The top margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the top edge of its graphical area.
  VisibleHeight FLOAT The visible height of an object.
  VisibleWidth FLOAT The visible width of an object.
  Width FLOAT The width of an object.
XCoord FLOAT An object's horizontal coordinate.
  XOffset FLOAT An object's horizontal coordinate, offset from the right edge of its drawable container.
  YCoord FLOAT An object's vertical coordinate.
  YOffset FLOAT An object's vertical coordinate, offset from the bottom edge of its drawable container.

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